Reforestation, Xinjiang fighting back the desert and replace it with forest

[Beijingwalker]

China has finished a 46-year campaign to encircle Taklamakan, its largest desert with trees as part of national efforts to end desertification.

Many who participated this half a century long compaign didn't live to see this miraculous collective achievement.

 

[Beijingwalker]

Taklimakan Desert, 'Sea of Death', fully encircled by green belt in Xinjiang, China​

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[Beijingwalker]

China's largest desert fully encircled with green belt​

Source: Xinhua

2024-12-03 12:05:35



China's largest desert, the Taklimakan, known as the "Sea of Death," has been fully encircled with a 3,046 km green belt. This marks another milestone in the country's decades-long battle against desertification

China's largest desert fully encircled with green belt

China's largest desert fully encircled with green belt-

english.news.cn

 

[Beijingwalker]

Xinjiang desert city Korla, river diversion projects vitalise the city​

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Enchanting China：From Desert to Forest​

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[Beijingwalker]

China's largest desert encircled by 40-year green barrier project

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[Beijingwalker]

How China Is Turning Deserts Into Forests?​

Apr 29, 2025

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What if the future of climate solutions wasn’t coming from Silicon Valley — but from the deserts of China?In today’s video, Top 10 Discoveries Official takes you inside the groundbreaking transformation led by China, where the dream of turning barren land green is becoming a china desert to forest reality

.From the Gobi to the Sahara, Beijing is not only planting trees — it’s building entire ecosystems. Through massive investment, smart irrigation, solar-powered agriculture, and strategic cooperation with Africa, China’s china desert to forest strategy is reshaping more than land — it’s reshaping geopolitics.While Western nations debate emissions and targets, China is acting — exporting its china desert to forest model to countries like Ethiopia, Senegal, and Niger.

With projects tied to rare earths, irrigation, and smart agriculture, it’s building influence in the world’s most vulnerable regions.This isn’t just about reversing desertification. It’s about rewriting global power with green tools.

China’s china desert to forest efforts have already restored millions of acres, reduced poverty, and given rise to new industries — while the U.S. struggles to find its role in this global race.Don’t miss this in-depth look at how China’s china desert to forest campaign could be the most important ecological and geopolitical play of the 21st century.

 

[Beijingwalker]

Xinjiang's Kekeya Spirit: The Green Legend of Aksu​

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[S.Y.A]

need to do this in thar and cholistan. instead of more canals, why not use sewage/drainage water from nearby cities to push the desert back gradually.

 

[Beijingwalker]

Aksu, Then and Now

This combo photo shows a bulldozer leveling the ground in Kekeya in 1986 (above, file photo), and an aerial view of Kekeya (below, photo taken by Xinhua photographer Li Xiang on Sept. 1, 2023) of Aksu Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Li Xiang)

This combo photo shows volunteers and forest rangers planting trees in Kekeya in 2006 (above, file photo), and a view of forests in Kekeya (below, photo taken by Xinhua photographer Li Xiang on Aug. 30, 2023) of Aksu Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Li Xiang)

This aerial photo taken on Aug. 31, 2023 shows a view of urban area in Aksu Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Li Xiang)

 

[Beijingwalker]

Desert town Aksu, saved by reforestation

 

[Beijingwalker]

Desert town Aksu, saved by reforestation

 

[Beijingwalker]

China Planted So Many Trees Around the Taklamakan Desert It Turned It Into a Carbon Sink​

Tree planting is often "green washing." Not in this case.

by Mihai Andrei
February 17, 2026
in Climate, Environment, News

The Taklamakan Desert has a name that translates, roughly and ominously, to “The Place of No Return.” For centuries, this 130,000-square-mile expanse in western China was exactly that — a furnace of shifting dunes and suffocating dust. Bounded by the towering Kunlun, Pamir, and Tian Shan mountains, it remained a “biological void” until 1978.

That’s when China launched the Three-North Shelterbelt Program. This audacious, almost hubristic plan aimed to plant a “Great Green Wall” of billions of trees to stop the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts from swallowing local communities. Against the odds, the plan appears to be working. Vegetation is reclaiming the desert’s edge, turning a wasteland into a functioning carbon sink.

The Glow of Success​

China’s tree planting program has its fair share of critics. Scientists have pointed to a low survival rate for trees planted in China’s arid north. These “thirsty” forests can actually worsen desertification by aggressively draining underground aquifers, leaving native grasses to wither and die, which ironically exposes more soil to wind erosion. Water is the ultimate currency here, and China bet it on a risky gamble.

But the gamble is working out.

Topographic model of the Taklamakan Desert and surrounding elements. Image via Google Earth.

Researchers led by Salma Noor used a technique called Solar-Induced Fluorescence (SIF). When plants photosynthesize, they emit a faint near-infrared glow. Our eyes can’t see it, but NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) can. The more the Taklamakan glows, the more photosynthesis happens and the more carbon it is eating.

The numbers are small but significant.

“This is not a rainforest,” notes UCR atmospheric physicist King-Fai Li. “It’s a shrubland like Southern California’s chaparral. But the fact that it’s drawing down CO2 at all, and doing it consistently, is something positive we can measure and verify from space.”

Why We Can’t Plant Our Way Out of a Crisis​

The Taklamakan project works because of a very specific geographical lucky break. The desert is surrounded by massive mountains. As the climate warms, the glaciers on those mountains are melting faster, providing a temporary surge in runoff. This water flows down the Tarim River and into the irrigation systems that keep the “Great Green Wall” alive.

In every system like this, the main limitation is water, and you can’t make water out of nothing.

If that water disappears, which it might as glaciers vanish, the green wall could turn brown and we could slide into the scenario where the green wall does more harm than good. This is the central tension of afforestation: it requires resources that are already in short supply.

If you tried to do this in another desert, like the Sahara, you’d run into major issues. The Sahara lacks the high-mountain runoff that feeds the Taklamakan. Replicating this success would require massive desalination projects or tapping into ancient, non-renewable underground aquifers.

There’s also another cost to greening a desert. Deserts are bright; they reflect sunlight back into space (this is called “albedo”). Trees and shrubs are dark; they absorb heat. Some scientists worry that by “greening” the desert, we might actually be warming the local area by absorbing more solar radiation, even if we are pulling CO2 from the air.

Why This Matters​

The new study suggests the carbon sequestration benefits in the Taklamakan currently outweigh the heat absorption. The increased vegetation also leads to more “evapotranspiration” — basically, the plants sweat, which can lead to localized cooling and even more rainfall.

“We’re not going to solve the climate crisis by planting trees in deserts alone. But understanding where and how much CO₂ can be drawn down, and under what conditions, is essential,” Li said. “This is one piece of the puzzle.”

The Taklamakan project proves that human intervention can halt desertification and create stable carbon sinks in “hopeless” landscapes.

Even though the jury isn’t out on how this will affect the environment, for now, it seems to be a net positive.

“Even deserts are not hopeless,” Li said. “With the right planning and patience, it is possible to bring life back to the land, and, in so doing, help us breathe a little easier.”

China Planted So Many Trees Around the Taklamakan Desert It Turned It Into a Carbon Sink

Tree planting is often "green washing." Not in this case.

www.zmescience.com